Rightly Dividing Paul’s Epistles

In the debate over what is the correct treatment in dispensationalizing the New Testament, I would like to make an attempt to present a position that seems to have been left out of the current list of designations concerning this subject, e.g., “Acts 2,” “Acts 9,” “Acts 13,” “Acts 28,” etc.

Before I embark on this effort to present my position, for the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with the above dispensational persuasions, I will provide a brief summary of each as I understand them.

Acts 2

This particular treatment, often referred to as “classical or traditional dispensationalism,” teaches that the church of the present dispensation began with the calling out of the “lost sheep” by the 12 apostles in Acts chapter 2, which commenced what is often referred to by those of this view as “the church age.”

This would be the most prevalent belief system among dispensationalists. Those who hold this position are traditionally categorized into three groups: 1. Classical; 2. Modified Classical; and 3. Progressive. Theologians who have contributed the most to the foundations of the Classical view would include J.N. Darby, C.I. Scofield, and L. S. Chafer; the Modified view: John Walvoord, Dwight Pentecost, and Charles Ryrie; and the Progressive view: Craig Blaising, Darrell Bock, and Robert Saucy. The main theological treatises for the classic view would include the Scofield Reference Bible and Chafer’s Systematic Theology. Ryrie’s Study Bible and his book Dispensationalism are the most popular written works of the modified view and Blaising’s Progressive Dispensationalism of the Progressive view.

Eschatologically speaking, all of these men would hold to the view that the church of the present dispensation is distinct from Israel (most believers in this group of dispensationalists still believe that the modern nation Israel came into existence by divine providence and therefore holds a special place in God’s heart and, thus, because of the mandates of Gen. 12 and 17, must be defended (blessed) at all costs), that the promise to Israel will be fulfilled in a future dispensation. There would, however, be considerable differences between them concerning to what extent Israel is related to the church and the interpretation of prophecy, and to what extent it plays in the scheme of things. All would say the sign gifts ended with the Apostolic era. (This would not be the case with “Pentecostals,” who claim the sign gifts to still be effectual in the church. Please see the article “I am not a Charismatic” for my position concerning this group of people.) All would hold to the practice of water baptism (but with differing beliefs about what it affects) and the Lord’s supper, and proclaim Acts 2:38 as the gospel message for today. No distinction would be made—concerning the gospel and salvation—between what the 12 preached and what Paul preached. Major denominational systems that hold to the Acts 2 position would include most Baptists,  Evangelical Free (Dallas Theological); Moody Bible Institute, et. al.

Acts 9 & 13

Also known as the “Mid-Acts” position, and sometimes referred to by Acts 2 proponents as “hyper dispensationalism,” this view, like the Acts 2 view, holds to the parenthetical nature of the church in the prophetic timeline, being a distinct entity from Israel (they reject the Acts 2 position concerning modern Israel because they believe the blessing and cursing mandate of Gen. 12 and 17 is presently suspended), but differs in that it doesn’t begin the church or the church age in Acts 2–identifying that church as distinctly Jewish—but, rather, begins the church the body of Christ and the church dispensation (grace-Eph. 3:2) in either Acts 9 (with Saul’s conversion), or Acts 13 (where Saul becomes Paul). The main theological contributors of this view are: Sir Robert Anderson, J.C. O’Hair, C.R. Stam, and C.F. Baker.* Doctrinally, Mid-Acts dispensationalists believe Paul had a gospel distinct from that of the 12, which does not include the ordinance of water baptism, but does include the Lord’s supper (the NT version of the Passover memorial). They believe the whole canon of scripture is written for us, but only Paul’s epistles (they generally include the letter to the Hebrews as part of this) are written to us (the body of Christ) for direct obedience. They are, generally speaking, eschatologically pre-trib (the rapture precedes the seven-year tribulation), futurists (everything written in the book of Revelation is yet in the future and applies only to Israel), and believe in the future reign of Israel in the prophesied millennial kingdom. The main organizations supporting this view are the Berean Bible Society in Germantown, Wisconsin (founded by Pastor Stam), Grace Bible College of Grand Rapids, Michigan (founded by Pastor Baker), and Grace Theological Seminary of Winona Lake, Indiana. The three major theological treatises of this view would be Anderson’s “The Silence of God,”  Stam’s “Things That Differ,” and Baker’s “A Dispensational Theology.” I have read and studied these works, and have been richly blessed and instructed by all three.

*An ironic aside to this is Baker was a graduate of the leading Acts 2 educational institution, Dallas Theological Seminary. 

Acts 28

This view, also known as “ultra-dispensationalism” and “Bullingerism,” divides Paul’s epistles into two divisions: Acts and Post-Acts (or “prison”) epistles. The view, considered to be the most extreme and unscriptural by classic and mid-Acts dispensationalists, is said to be founded on the writings of late 19th, and early 20th century Greek and Hebrew scholar, E.W. Bullinger.  Here is what most say he believed: The church of the present dispensation did not begin until Israel, as God’s chosen people, was set aside by Paul’s declaration in Acts 28:26-28.

Apparently, whatever was being established by Paul during his Acts ministry was considered to be a different entity, under a different gospel message. This post-Acts church, it is said, was the church of the “mystery” of Ephesians 3 and Colossians 1. In this view, there is no doctrine in Paul’s Acts Epistles (those letters written during his Acts ministry, viz., Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians) to those congregations he established during it) that applies to the church of the mystery.*

*This statement by Bullinger, in the intro to his commentary on the epistle to the Romans in the Companion Bible, summarily shoots down the contention he taught that there is no doctrine to the church of the mystery in any of the Acts epistles:

“Romans comes first in order of the three great doctrinal epistles. And rightly so, for it contains the ABC of the believer’s education. Until its lesson is learned, we know and can know nothing. The Holy Spirit has placed it first in Canonical order because it lies at the threshold of all “church” teaching, and if we are wrong here we shall be wrong altogether.”

I, and other “stewards of the mysteries” (1 Cor. 4:1) I am associated with, am routinely accused by some mid-Acts brethren of teaching the Acts 28 position. I would like to dispel this accusation as follows.

The Rightly Divided Position

I think it can safely be said that every serious Bible expositor desires to rightly divide the scriptures, and I’m sure that all the above folks (as well as the multitude of non-dispensationalist theologians) believe they are doing this. But someone isn’t because these different views of the Scriptures can’t all be right.

Some might even say it’s impossible to rightly divide the scriptures. Nonsense. If Scripture commands us, through Paul, to rightly divide the word of truth, and says that this is the only way we can be counted as “workmen,” then I believe it must be possible….why would God command us to do something that is impossible to do?

In the quest to come to “the knowledge of the truth….unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God…”(1 Tim 2:4; Col 2:2), the first question we must ask is: what does Paul mean by the phrase “rightly dividing”? Does he mean to divide the whole canon of scripture, old and new testaments? Generally speaking, yes. However, the manner in which this is done, e.g., what and how many dispensations one comes up with is—as Pastor Baker rightly points out in “A Dispensational Theology”—academic. Does he mean dividing what he wrote from what the other NT writers wrote? Absolutely. I don’t think there would be any argument about this among those dispensationalists who see Paul’s revelation as distinct from the rest of the NT. *

* While no “rightly divider” I know of would include doctrine from the four gospels as that to be adhered to by the body of Christ, some mid-Acts teachers consider the letter to the Hebrews (which they claim Paul wrote), and a few include the epistles of Peter James and John in the mix as well. While there are certainly spiritual principles in these letters, as there are throughout Scripture, that apply to the body of Christ, I believe their doctrine is no different from that taught in the gospels, and therefore cannot be for the B of C.

So what’s the rub? The rub is over the idea that Paul meant not only for us to distinguish his revelation from the rest of the NT, but to rightly divide that revelation as well.

Before you start screaming “Bullengerism!” hear me out on this; it might surprise you.

As I see it, this is the way it falls out:

As I pointed out heretofore, all the mid-Acts Brethren would agree that the church of the present dispensation did not begin in Acts 2 and 3 with the conversion of the eight thousand. That was the beginning of the carrying out of the commission given to the Lord’s disciples in Matthew 28 and Mark 16 to Israel. This is the calling out of the new nation of Matthew 21:43; “the lost sheep of the house of Israel“(Matt. 10:6). In other words, the so-called “great commission” is not for the church of the present dispensation to carry out. The message preached by Peter in Acts 2:38 was a continuation of what was preached at the beginning of the Lord’s earthly ministry—the “gospel of the kingdom”(Matt. 4:23)—and was particular to that dispensation and the future kingdom to come. It is therefore not applicable in the present dispensation. The church the body of Christ began with Saul in Acts 9. This has to be so because, in 1 Timothy 1:16, Paul said he was the first to be saved like he was and would be a pattern to all who followed him. The Acts 13 separation of Saul from the Jerusalem church, the changing of his name to the Gentile name, Paul, and the move to Antioch, where we see the first recorded preaching of his gospel (Acts 13: 38,39) to a mixed crowd of Jews and Gentiles, signifies the beginning of what he would later call “a dispensation of the gospel.” (1 Cor. 9:17). * 

*There is a school of thought among Mid-Acts brethren that teaches that the Gentile Cornelius,  who Peter was sent to preach in Acts 10, was saved into the body of Christ. Some of this group also contends that Peter and the rest of the kingdom church he established through the preaching of “the gospel of the kingdom” in Acts 2 and 3, were also assimilated into the body of Christ, marking the end of the kingdom program, and the beginning Paul’s grace program.

From this point forward, with the exception of chapter 15, Paul completely dominates the Acts. All during this period he goes “to the Jew first” (Romans 1:16). But beginning in chapter 18 he reveals that “henceforth I will go to the Gentiles.” (verse 6). Why would he say this when he had been preaching to Gentiles since Acts 13? He couldn’t have been speaking of them. In chapter 22 he again announces that the Lord had told him, “I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles.” These “far hence” Gentiles could only be those Gentiles he described in Ephesians and Colossians, who were “strangers from the covenants of promise.”(Eph. 2:12) All the Gentiles he had gone to thus far were, in one way or another, in Israel’s covenants (Gal. 3:29). They were either Gentile proselytes (circumcised Gentiles), or uncircumcised Gentiles “who feared God, and worked righteousness” (like Cornelius in Acts 10).

Although the body of Christ was being formed by the gospel of Christ during this time, there is no way this could be the dispensation of grace as the mid-Acts view says it is. The reason for this is the church (the body of Christ), so as not to offend the Jews or the Church of God (the church at Jerusalem), was still keeping the Jewish ordinances—including water baptism. Paul indeed said to the Corinthians, “Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel,” (1 Cor 1:17), but the fact is, he was baptizing people (Acts 16:33)! He berated the Galatians for desiring to be circumcised, but he circumcised Timothy!( Acts 16:3). In Romans 3:20 he said, “by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified..” but in 1 Corinthians 9:20 he said, “unto the Jews I became as a Jew; to them that are under the law, as under the law…” He also manifested all the sign gifts during the Acts right up to the last chapter, and in that final chapter—after having declared he was going “far hence unto the Gentiles” (Act 22:21)–what does he do when he arrives in Rome as a prisoner? He calls for the Jewish leadership! To the Jew first! (Romans 1:16)

In Acts 28:26-28 Paul, applying Isaiah 6:9 declares the Nation Israel to be blinded and casts them away as God‘s chosen people. He is now ready to fully reveal the mystery, the dispensation of the grace of God. It could not have commenced before this because as long as Israel was in the forefront, ordinances were in order for the body of Christ.

The Difference Between the Dispensation of the Gospel and the Dispensation of Grace

The grace dispensation did not change the gospel or the means of salvation, nor did it create another church. What it did was bring together the Acts congregations that had been formed by the preaching of the gospel of Christ, who were under ordinances (Ref. 1 Cor. 11:2), with the post-Acts congregations who were not, into one fellowship, viz. the “one new man….the fellowship of the mystery” (Ephesians 2:15; 3:9) This could only be accomplished by doing away with the ordinances, i.e., everything that had been associated with Israel, including divine healing, tongues, baptism, words of knowledge, prophecies, feasts, ceremonials, Sabbaths, etc.

If someone asks me where I believe my marching orders are in Scripture, without hesitation, I will tell them: Paul’s 13 epistles, rightly divided. Is what is written in the Acts epistles written to me? The doctrines concerning salvation, justification, reconciliation, resurrection, redemption, etc. certainly are. But, am I to go to the Jew first, as Paul directs in Romans 1:16? Or start observing the law (become as a Jew) to win those of Jewish descent? “Bless” the modern nation Israel? Not offend the Jews or the Church of God? Shave my head and take a vow? Keep the Jewish feast days? Abstain from eating meats offered to idols? Desire to possess one of the sign gifts of 1 Corinthians 12:28-30? Absolutely not! Why? Because that program ended with the simultaneous casting away of national Israel and the advent of the grace dispensation, which is where we are now and have been for 2000 years.

The principles of grace and the foundational doctrines are distributed among all 13 of Paul’s letters. I spend just as much time teaching out of the first six epistles as I do the last seven. Nevertheless, I still make a distinction between the two, because there are things that were being done by Paul and the Acts church during that time that aren’t called for now.

In summary, I see the grace dispensation, the mystery, as the revelation that ended all the practices associated with the Jew’s religion. As Sir Robert Anderson put it, “Christianity is not a religion, it is a revelation and a faith.” I believe my primary duty as a teacher—in addition to preaching the gospel of Christ—is to show this mystery, which did away with the Jew’s religion, to the world. I cannot see any other way of effectively accomplishing this without rightly dividing Paul’s revelation.

Please feel free to reprint this article or re-distribute it via the internet. All Scripture references are taken from the King James Bible.

Related Articles: The Mystery; Amazing Grace; Why Paul?  

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